The First Step

Published:Sotsial-DemokratNo. 45–46, October 11, 1915.

      Published according to the text inSotsial-Demokrat.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[197[4]],

      Moscow,Volume 21,

      pages383-388.Translated:Transcription\Markup:D. WaltersandR. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      2003

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.

Thedevelopment of the international socialist movement is slow during the
      tremendous crisis created by the war. Yet it is moving towards a break
      with opportunism and social-chauvinism, as was clearly shown by the
      International Socialist Conference held at Zimmerwald, Switzerland,
      between September 5 and 8, 1915.

Fora whole year, the socialists of the warring and the neutral countries
    vacillated and temporised. Afraid to admit to themselves the gravity of the
    crisis, they did not wish to look reality in the face, and kept deferring in
    a thousand ways the inevitable break with the opportunism and Kautskyism
    prevalent in the official parties of Western Europe.

However,the analysis of events which we gave a year ago in the Manifesto
    of the Central Committee (Sotsial DemokratNo. 33)[1]has proved
    correct; the events have borne out its correctness. They took a course that
    resulted in the first International Socialist Conference being attended by
    representatives of the protesting elements of the minorities in Germany,
    France, Sweden, and Norway, who acted against the decisions of the official
    parties, i.e., in fact acted schismatically.

Thework of the Conference was summed up in a manifesto and a resolution
    expressing sympathy with the arrested and the persecuted. Both documents
    appear in this issue ofSotsial-Demokrat.By nineteen votes to
    twelve, the Conference refused to submit to a committee the draft resolution
    proposed by us and other revolutionary Marxists;our draft manifesto was
    passed on to the committee together with two others, for a joint manifesto
    to be drawn up. The reader will find elsewhere in this issue our two drafts;
    a comparison of the latter with the manifesto adopted clearly shows that a
    number of fundamental ideas of revolutionary Marxism were adopted.

Inpractice, the manifesto signifies a step towards an ideological and
    practical break with opportunism and social-chauvinism. At the same time,
    the manifesto, as any analysis will show, contains inconsistencies, and does
    not say everything that should be said.

Themanifesto calls the war imperialist and emphasises two features of
    imperialism: the striving of the capitalists ofeverynation for
    profits and the exploitation of others, and the striving of the Great Powers
    to partition the world and “enslave” weaker nations. The
    manifesto repeats the most essential things that should be said of the
    imperialist nature of the war, and were said in our resolution. In this
    respect, the manifesto merelypopularisesour
    resolution. Popularisation is undoubtedly a useful thing. However, if we
    want clear thinking in the working class and attach importance to systematic
    and unflagging propaganda, we must accurately and fully define the
    principles to be popularised. If that is not done, we risk repeating the
    error, the fault of the Second International which led to its collapse,
    viz., we shall be leaving room for ambiguity and misinterpretations. Is it,
    for instance, possible to deny the signal importance of the idea, expressed
    in our resolution, that the objective conditions are mature for socialism?
    The “popular” exposition of the manifesto omitted this idea;
    failure has attended the attempt to combine, in one document, a clear and
    precise resolution based on principle, and an appeal.

“Thecapitalists of all countries ... claim that the war serves to
    defend the fatherland.... They are lying...”, the manifesto
    continues. Here again, this forthright statement that the fundamental idea
    of opportunism in the present war—the
    “defence-of-the-fatherland” idea—is a lie, is a repetition
    of the kernel of the revolutionary Marxists’ resolution. Again, the
    manifesto regrettably fails to say everything that should be said; it is
    half-hearted, afraid tospeak the whole truth. After a year of war, who
    today is not aware of the actual damage caused to socialism, not only by the
    capitalist pressrepeating and endorsingthe capitalists’lies(it is its business as a capitalist press to repeat the
    capitalists’ lies), but also by the greater part of the socialist
    press doing so? Who does not know that European socialism’s greatest
    crisis has been brought about not by the “capitalists’
    lies”, but by theliesof Guesde, Hyndman, Vandervelde,
    Plekhanov andKautsky? Who does not know that theliesspoken by such leaders suddenly revealed all the strength of the opportunism
    that swept them away at the decisive moment?

Letus take a look at what has come about: To make the masses see things
    in a clearer light, the manifesto says that in the present war the defence
    of the fatherland idea is a capitalist lie. The European masses, however,
    are not illiterate, and almost all who have read the manifesto have heard,
    and still hearthat same liefrom hundreds of socialist papers,
    journals, and pamphlets, echoing them after Plekhanov, Hyndman, Kautsky and
    Co. What will the readers of the manifesto think? What thoughts will arise
    in them after this display of timidity by the authors of the manifesto?
    Disregard the capitalists’ lie about the defence of the fatherland,
    the manifesto tells the workers. Well and good. Practically all of them will
    say or think: thecapitalists’ lie has long stopped bothering
    us, but the lie of Kautsky and Co. ...

Themanifesto goes on to repeat another important idea in our resolution,
    viz., that the socialist parties and the workers’ organisations of the
    various countries “havefloutedobligations stemming from the
    decisions of the Stuttgart, Copenhagen and Basle congresses”; that the
    International Socialist Bureau too hasfailed to do its duty; that
    this failure to do its duty consisted in voting for war credits, joining
    governments, recognising “a class truce” (submission to which the
    manifesto callsslavish; in other words, it accuses Guesde,
    Plekhanov, Kautsky and Co. of substituting for propaganda of socialism the
    propaganda ofslavishideas).

Isit consistent, we shall ask, to speak, in a
    “popular” manifesto, of the failure of a number of parties to do
    theirduty (it is common knowledge that the reference is to the strongest
    parties and the workers’ organisations in the most advanced countries:
    Britain, France and Germany), without giving any explanation of this
    startling and unprecedented fact? The greater part of the socialist parties
    and the International Socialist Bureau itself have failed to do their duty!
    What is this—an accident and the failure of individuals, or the
    turning-point of an entire epoch? If it is the former, and we circulate that
    idea among the masses, it is tantamount to our renouncing the fundamentals
    of socialist doctrine. If it is the latter, how can we fail to say so
    forthright? We are facing a moment of historic significance—the
    collapse of the International as a whole, a turning point of an entire
    epoch—and yet we areafraidto tell the masses that the whole
    truth must be sought for and found, and that we must do our thinking to the
    very end. It is preposterous and ridiculous to suppose that the
    International Socialist Bureau and a number of parties could have collapsed,withoutlinking up this event with the long history of the origin,
    the growth, the maturing andover-maturity of the general European
    opportunist movement, with its deep economic roots—deep, not in the
    sense that it is intimately linked with the masses, but in the sense that it
    is connected with a certain stratum of society.

Passingon to the “struggle for peace”, the manifesto states
    that: “This struggle is a struggle for freedom, the brotherhood of
    peoples, and socialism”. It goes on to explain that in wartime the
    workers make sacrifices “in the service of the ruling classes”,
    whereas they must learn to make sacrifices “for their own
    cause” (doubly underscored in the manifesto), “for the
    sacred aims of socialism”. The resolution which expresses sympathy
    with arrested and persecuted fighters says that “the Conference
    solemnly undertakes to honour the living and the dead byemulating their
    example” and that its aim will be to “arouse the
    revolutionary spirit in the international proletariat”.

Allthese ideas are a reiteration of our resolution’s fundamental
    idea that a struggle for peacewithouta revolutionary struggle is
    a hollow and false phrase, and that a revolutionary struggle for socialism
    is the only way to put an end to the horror of war. But here too we find
    inconsistency,timidity, and a failure to say everything that ought to be
    said: it calls upon the masses toemulate the exampleof the
    revolutionary fighters; it declares that the five members of the Russian
    Social-Democratic Labour Duma group who have been sentenced to exile in
    Siberia have carried on “the glorious revolutionary tradition of
    Russia”; it proclaims the necessity of “arousing the revolutionary
    spirit”, butit does not specifyforthright and clearly the
    revolutionary methods of struggle.

Wasour Central Committee right in signing this manifesto, with all its
    inconsistency and timidity? We think it was. Our non-agreement, the
    non-agreement, not only of our Central Committee but of the entire
    international Left-wing section of the Conference, which stands by the
    principles ofrevolutionary Marxism, is openly expressed both in a
    special resolution, a separate draft manifesto, and a separate declaration
    on the vote for a compromise manifesto. We did not conceal a jot of our
    views, slogans, or tactics. A German edition of our pamphlet,Socialism and
War[2]was
    handed out at the Conference. We have spread, are spreading, and shall
    continue to spread our views with no less energy than the manifesto will. It
    is a fact that this manifesto is astep forwardtowards a real
    struggle against opportunism, towards a rupture with it. It would be
    sectarianism to refuse to take this step forwardtogetherwith the
    minority of German, French, Swedish, Norwegian, and Swiss socialists, when
    we retain full freedom and full opportunity to criticise inconsistency and
    to work for greater
things.[3]It would be poor war tactics to refuse to adhere
    to the mounting international protest movement against social-chauvinism
    just because this movement is slow, because it takes “only”
    a
    single step forward and because it is ready and willing to take a step
    backward tomorrowand make peace with the old International Socialist
    Bureau. Its readiness to make peace with the opportunists is so far merely
    wishful thinking. Will the opportunists agree to a peace? Is peaceobjectivelypossible betweentrendsthat are dividing more
    and more deeply—social-chauvinism and Kautskyism on the one hand, and
    on the other, revolutionary internationalist Marxism? We consider it
    impossible, and we shall continue our line, encouraged as we are by itssuccessat the Conference of September 5-8.

Thesuccess of our line is beyond doubt. Compare the facts: In September
    1914, our Central Committee’s Manifesto seemed almost isolated. In
    March 1915, an international women’s conference adopted a miserable
    pacifist resolution, which was blindly followed by the Organising
    Committee. In September 1915, we rallied in a whole group of the
    international Left wing. We came out with our own tactics, voiced a number
    of our fundamental ideas in a joint manifesto, and took part in the
    formation of an I.S.C. (International Socialist Committee), i.e., a
    practically new International Socialist Bureau, against the wishes of the
    old one, and on the basis of a manifesto that openly condemns the tactics of
    the latter.

Theworkers of Russia, whose overwhelming majority followed our Party and
    its Central Committee even in the years 1912-14, will now, from the
    experience of the international socialist movement, see that our tactics are
    being confirmed in a wider area, and that our fundamental ideas are shared
    by an ever growing and finer part of the proletarian International.

[1]Seepp. 25–34of this
    volume.—Ed.

[2]Seepp. 295–338 of this volume.—Ed.

[3]Weare not frightened by the fact that the Organising Committee and the
      Social-Revolutionaries signed the manifesto diplomatically, retaining all
      their links with—and all their attachmenttoNasha
      Zarya, Rubanovich, and the July 1915 Conference of the Popular
      Socialists and the Social-Revolutionaries in
Russia.[4]We have means
      enough to combat corrupt diplomacy and unmask it. It is more and more
      unmasking itself.Nasha Zaryaand Chkheidze’s group are
      helping us unmask Axelrod and Co. —Lenin

[4]TheConference of the Popular Socialists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries in
    Russia met in July 1915 in Petrograd. The Conference discussed the question
    of the attitude towards the war and adopted a resolution which called for
    active participation in the war on the side of tsarism.